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Who Won, Who Lost at the Euro Summit? And Did Merkel Fool Them All?

Thomas Peter/ReutersChancellor Angela Merkel before delivering a statement in the German lower house of Parliament, the Bundestag, on Friday, June 29.

Investors greeted the surprisingly productive Euro summit meeting this week with something approaching giddiness: stock markets climbed two to four percent and the euro rose healthily against the dollar.

But we have been here before — often.

Time and again, the markets have reacted positively to euro zone leaders’ progressive moves to defuse the euro crisis, only to later turn on the embattled currency once it dawns on them how much remains unresolved or unreformed. Then the euro skepticism comes roaring punishingly back.

As the postmortems multiply after the conclusion of what pretty much everyone agrees was a summit meeting that saw hope of real progress — everyone except Angela Merkel’s ruling coalition in Germany … and the German opposition — many commentators said Ms. Merkel had been rolled by the boys club of the leaders of Prime Minister Mario Monti of Italy, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy of Spain and President François Hollande of France.

But at least one analyst said, no, in fact, Ms. Merkel had tricked them all.

As Steven Erlanger and Paul Geitner report from Brussels, Ms. Merkel “received criticism from some in her own party and from members of the opposition Social Democrats, who argued that allowing banks to tap directly into the bailout funds brought Germany closer to a common sharing of debt.”

Still, her skill at diverting this summit from discussing more sweeping issues like euro bonds should not be underestimated, said Holger Schmieding, a London-based economist at Germany’s Berenberg Bank.

‘‘That Monti, Rajoy and Hollande are now happily selling this as a victory says a lot about the diplomatic skills of Ms. Merkel,’’ he said.

The view on the ground in Berlin, outside the Bundestag where lawmakers were voting on the permanent European bailout fund and a European fiscal pact, seemed more unified. Melissa Eddy, in her piece, quotes ordinary Germans:

‘‘As a German citizen I feel as though I have been completely passed by,’’ said Wigbert Baumann, who had traveled with a group from the southern city of Würzburg to demonstrate…

‘‘What bothers me is the way this has even been organized, on the last day before the summer break, in a late night session,’’ said Swen Gerards.

A familiar lament: citizens across Europe have complained about a deficit of democratic representation as the euro zone and the European Union become more tightly knit confederations. Many charge that their politicians are running ahead of the people’s desires.

Meanwhile, Rachel Donadio, writes, in Rome there is no doubt about who won in Brussels: “It is Mr. Monti, even more than the new French president, François Hollande, to emerge as the counterweight to Germany in the European drama.”

Do you agree? And is “more Europe” more than most Europeans want? Did Ms. Merkel compromise where she had not choice, or was hers a selfless move to save the union? What will markets need to see in the coming weeks to keep their faith this time?